Amaranthine
by 1ceuponatime
Summary: In the year after Sakumo’s death, Minato is reminded of autumn falling quietly into winter. [Threepart study of Kakashi and the 4th Hokage]
1. Chapter 1

In the year after Sakumo's death, Minato is reminded of autumn falling quietly into winter. They visit the northern forests of the country in the last weeks of November; for training he tells Kakashi, but it's really because he sees how heavy the village air is to him.

But not here, because the air is crisp and dry on their faces and when they arrive the trees are ablaze with a dozen different shades of red and orange, so that Minato half expects to see smoke rising above the canopy.

"It's like fire," Kakashi whispers, and the awe and autumn sunlight break slowly into the darkness around him _(something human hands can never do)_, making Minato laugh with joy into the liberating air.

They train beneath ancient trees and unspoiled skies, where the spiteful comments are nothing more than whispers upon the wind _(but you can still hear it, if you listen hard enough)_.

Beneath the slowly dwindling awning of the forest he teaches Kakashi to bring a cyclone of chakra within his hand _(he'll always be lightning, though)_, and thinks that winter is late this year.

It comes without them noticing, within the dead of night so one morning they awake to find the earth cold and unforgiving beneath them. The forest is almost barren now, and it looks naked to them as if the fire has been extinguished and left only the ashes behind. But Kakashi is flushed and bright as fall against the winter cold, and Minato is glad that he has not frozen with the land.

The leave with the first snowfall, because the forest can do without them but the village cannot _(oh, they'll see the irony)_, and Kakashi is drowning comfortably within a too-large shirt because he did not anticipate the winter cold _(but he will learn as the seasons come, leave, then come again…)_.

They return south, their thoughts on a lonely forest behind them, to the village where it is rarely winter. They find the whispers and looks are the same as when they left, and Minato is afraid to see that Kakashi has brought the cold's indifference with him. His eyes are gray and dull as a snowing sky, so Minato makes it a point to drag him out for ramen or show up at his apartment with ice cream in the dead of night.

When Kakashi smiles, rare as it is _(and the mask is never enough to stop Minato from seeing)_, he sees hope that winter will one day turn to spring.


	2. Chapter 2

When he tries to give back the shirt, washed and folded as well as one would expect from a six-year-old boy, Minato doesn't take it. 

"Keep it Kakashi. I have way too many of those."

Kakashi shrugs and does as he's told because it still smells of the forest in autumn, and that's a smell he'll savor forever _(though Konoha's forests are not the same)_.

His sensei smells of autumn too, and each time Kakashi thinks it, he blushes and says nothing when Minato questions him. He smells of the sweetness of falling leaves and the freshness of a crisp, gusting wind.

It's their smell, and Kakashi takes comfort in the knowledge that no one can take it from them, because the forest is burned to the ground within the first year of the war.


	3. Chapter 3

When Namikaze Minato dies, after the initial shock and sleepless nights, you find you are able to keep your breath even and hands still if you imagine Minato in a heaven alike your forest.

There, it is a perpetual autumn. The leaves continue to fall, and fall, and yet the trees are never barren. The air is cool and you can feel it changing to winter with each breeze upon your face, but it is an amaranthine transformation that is never complete.

Minato sits beneath an orange and gold maple, with the sunlight dancing incandescent patterns upon his face around the gently fluttering leaves. He is autumn, and yet so much more than autumn because he's a golden leaves will never match, and his half-closed eyes shame the clarion skies with their blueness _("it's a shame, he was like the boy's father…better than the one he had, anyway…")_.

"It's not so bad," he says, in the voice like bells and thunder at the same time, and it makes you wonder yet again how warmth and strength can exist so close beside each other, "it's not all that bad, this fire…" he says, and you wonder if he is talking to you or not because Minato always looked you in the eye when he did that.

But he sounds almost happy, and you realize you haven't seen him as relaxed as this since that time you watched autumn fall into winter together.

You want to tell him a lot, because things have happened since autumn left Konoha for good. He'd like to know that the baby's doing fine, and that he laughs just like his father does _(though it bleeds your heart each time)_.

But you say nothing, because those eyes _(like autumn skies, and sunlight that can always break your darkness) _would make you tell him that Jiraiya's found the bottom of the bottle more times than you can count if you wanted to, and that he won't look at the baby yet because he says he doesn't want to see a ghost. You don't want him to know that the baby cries and cries for his mother, or that villagers whisper monster already.

You say nothing, and are glad your shirt covers the fresh insignia upon your shoulder.

The Fourth Hokage smiles and sighs, and you breathe in the air from his lungs and find the inside of him tastes like autumn too, or honey licked off your fingers.

"Kakashi," someone calls you, and it sounds like Rin, but you ignore it because she isn't allowed here with you and Minato.

You may be winter, but you'll always favor fall.


End file.
